watched the Reagan lecture

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+The Presidency of Ronald Reagan
+"It's Morning Again in America."
+- Developed his personal brand on the 80s
+    - The country was in trouble, brought down by leaders brought down
+      by nagging dilemmas.
+    - "Rescue America" and restore confidence.
+    - Emulated FDR's 
+        - Used the power of the presidency to gut the welfare state
+            - Excoriated the Great Society (welfare recipients are too
+              lazy to get a job, lambasted the Soviet Union)
+            - Anti-environmentalism
+        - Gorbachev in the Soviet Union helped dissolve Am-Sov conflict.
+          Reagan took credit.
+    - Believed that slashing taxes would make America rich. Also wanted
+      to "crush the enemy"
+        - Treated as an essentially a religion; treated as infallible
+          despite any possible contradictory evidence
+
+Questions
+- What factors led to the election of Ronald Reagan and the rise of the
+  conservative movement?
+- What is "Reaganomics?" What were its effects on American society and
+  the economy?
+- How did Reagan's foreign policy toward the Soviets help end the Cold
+  War?
+
+- Reagan was not a deepthinker. He was a patriot.
+    - Son of Irish-Catholic shoe salesman. Devout bible
+    - Won a football scholarship to a small college in Illinois during
+      the Great Depression. Washed dishes to make money in college.
+    - Worked as a sportscaster before Hollywood, served 3yrs in the army
+      in World War, making training films.
+    - Was a Democrat at the time.
+- Delivered a speech on national television in support of Barry
+  Goldwater
+- Won Governor of Calif. in 1966
+- Part of his popularity came from his great ability as a speaker
+  (baritone voice and a wealth of entertianing stories)
+    - New Right was behind Reagan. Migration to the Sun Belt.
+    - Property taxes were reduced in California. Overwhelming majority
+      of voters agreed to Prop 113 to slash property taxes by 57%, also
+      making it harder to increase taxes later on.
+        - The idea spread across the nation. The New York Times called
+          it the modern Boston Tea Party, key in support for
+          conservative support for politicians like Reagan.
+        - Megachurches crusading against liberalism at home and
+          communism abroad sprung up.
+- Reagan succeeded because he focused on a few main points:
+    - Reducing inflation, taxes
+    - Anti-Soviet foreign policy.
+    - Shrewd negotiator with congressional leaders and foreign heads of
+      state. Realized that running a democracy required compromise.
+    - Lots of optimism like FDR gave people a renewed sense of
+      confidence and purpose. "You have every right to dream"
+- First thing Reagan did was freeze federal hiring. Replaced Truman in
+  the cabinet room with Coolidge (super anti-gov president). Reagan
+  believed government was the problem.
+- 6 shots fired at Reagan before election. Increased support for him by
+  electorate.
+
+Insiders at Reagan's White House realized he remained detached from
+details of the decisionmaking process.
+    - Very relaxed, buoyant, elegant.
+    - Read newspapers over breakfast, went to his office at 9, an hour
+      of personal time, lunch, watched television. Whenever possible,
+      his schedule conduced to a positive, upbeat atmosphere.
+        - Reagan appointed officials who would help him succeed.
+    - David Gergen, office of WH Communications, worked to influence
+      news coverage of the WH.
+        - He and other aides operated under the premise that the press's
+          portrayal of the president would strongly affect public
+          opinion of the president.
+    - Gergen was proactive about establishing a "line of the day," a
+      single point of discussion with reporters. Said they "had to think
+      like a television producer."
+
+Reaganomics
+- Reflected two beliefs of Reagan:
+    - Least gov is best gov
+    - Give economic power to the private sector for sustained prosperity
+- David Stockman, not a cabinet member but head of OMB, masterminded
+  Reaganomics.
+- 1981 Economic Recovery Tax Act
+    - Aug 1, 1981, Reagan signed economic recovery tax act, cutting
+      personal income taxes by 50%, lowered max tax rate from 70% to 50%
+    - "Common sense economic plan."
+        - Theorists call it "Supply Side" economics
+    - Proposed solution to stagflation, believing that the rich would
+      spend their money on goods, and the spending would "trickle down"
+      benefits to the lower classes.
+    - Did not work as planned, causing the Recession of 1981-1982 and
+      increasing the federal budget deficit.
+- Reduced Social Security and Medicare, the most expensive and most
+  popular fed. social programs to meet the budget deficit.
+    - According to Stockman, Reagan was too kind and gentle to make the
+      necessary cuts to balance the budget.
+        - Also continued subsidies for big corps. Reagan never fully
+          dismantled federal programs.
+        - Also made massive increases in military spending, @ $1.2T over
+          three years.
+        - The recession also had huge unemployment levels
+    - "Revenue increases" (tax lifting) were pushed by his aides,
+      including Stockman, but the Recession continued.
+        - Dems picked up 21 House seats.
+    - By summer 1983, economy started to recover because of increased
+      spending, lower interest rates, and partially because of lower tax
+      rates.
+        - Reaganomics did not help balance the budget.
+1986 Tax Reform Act
+    - Top tax rate 50% -> 28% and bottom 11% -> 15%.
+    - Fed budget deficit went from $90B to $283B
+        - America had to borrow and raised interest rates to attract
+          capital
+        - Foreign money flooded into America, and the dollar rose
+          dramatically.
+        - Cheapened imports, forcing American companies to relocate
+          outside the country.
+    - Largest creditor nation -> largest debtor nation. Trade imbalance
+      of $170B by 1987.
+- More jobs created in 1980s than lost, but half of those lost were in
+  high-wage industries and half of those gained were below the poverty
+  line.
+    - Exacerbated growing wealth inequality, a two-tiered society.
+
+Reagan and Foreign Policy
+- Reagan's Foreign Policy was very supported by the public.
+- Very anti-communist interventionist foreign policy
+    - Reagan Doctrine wanted to roll back communism in the "third world"
+        - Gave military support to freedom fighters in Angola, others
+        - Military advisers and millions of dollars to reactionary
+          regime in El Salvador and overthrow of Sandinistas by Contras.
+- Reagan believed the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons would be
+  achieved by "peace through strength."
+    - Believed a strong defense was the best deterrent to aggression
+    - Secretly authorized contact with Soviet leadership, but acted like
+      a hawk in public about the Soviets. Denounced the "evil Empire."
+- Reagan escalated the arms race with the announce of the Strategic
+  Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") to intercept and destroy missiles in
+  flight before they hit the US.
+    - Skepticism by the media, gov officials, and scientists
+    - But Congress eventually allocated $30B to the program, but SDI,
+      although never implemented, when matched by the Soviets, helped
+      bankrupt the country.
+
+1984 Presidential Election: Reagan vs Walter Mondale
+- Mondale took the midwestern ethos of hard work and public service.
+- Jimmy Carter's runningmate. Took an active and daily role in all major
+  decisions. 
+- Mondale had a chance of winning if he could capitalize on Americans'
+  sense of fairness.
+    - Said proposals were a Trojan Horse for lowering taxes on the
+      wealthy
+    - Redistribution of wealth and power from gov to private, poor to
+      rich, workers to capitalists
+    - Reagan claimed to believe in conservative egalitarianism
+        - In hindsight, there is no way anyone could have beaten out
+          Reagan. The economy was booming, unemployment was low, Moscow
+          Olympics boycott gave Reagan a ton of pub support.
+    - Mondale lost in a landslide, only getting Minnesota.
+- The election was about traditional values and America's opinion of
+  itself as well as the economic status of the country 
+- There were growing questions about foreign policy.
+- Reagan said, "we brought America back" as his campaign slogan.
+- Americans wanted to celebrate the new era of "good feelings."
+
+War in Nicaragua
+- Dictator in Nicaragua overthrown by leftwing uprising of Sandinistas.
+- Reagan suspended foreign aid to Nicaraguan gov't and authorized covert
+  war to bring down Sandinistas in favor of the Contras.
+- Reagan's justification of intervention was to prevent the growth of
+  communism.
+- Support of contras was unpopular because of a fear of another Vietnam.
+    - Boland Amendment passed by Congress banned CIA and DOD from
+      funding the Contras.
+    - National Security Council Advisor John Poindexter and Oliver North
+      authorized plan to fund the Contras.
+        - Authorized arm sales to Iranian government. Hostile to the US,
+          but Reagan was critical of Carter's stance on the gov.
+            - US asked Iran to pressure Lebanon to release American
+              hostages kidnapped by Hezbollah, paramilitary group funded
+              by Iran.
+            - North overcharged Iran for the weapons and used the extra
+              money to supply the anti-Communist forces with arms and
+              supplies
+                - Trading arms for hostages were problematic, since more
+                  American hostages were taken by Hezbollah when one was
+                  released. This was in secret because Reagan said he
+                  wouldn't negotiate with terrorists.
+        - Scheme unraveled when American cargo plane for the Contras
+          crashed in Nicaragua. Three died, one captured. Journalists
+          revealed the scandal.
+- John Tower's investigation gave the administration a slap on the wrist
+- John Walsh, investigator under multimillion, contradicted Tower
+  investigation by concluding that it was directed by the top of the
+  Reagan administration.
+    - Congress, at the time, found no smoking gun that Reagan knew about
+      or authorized the Iran-Contra Deal.
+    - North got limited protection from prosecution and took a
+      melodramatic tone.
+- Congress, Speaker of House decided not to impeach Reagan because
+  Reagan would be treading on thin ice: either Reagan authorized his
+  admin or he couldn't control it.
+    - Ruined his public image. Investigations led to 6 indictments.
+    - Only John Poindexter received a jail sentence---6 months for
+      obstruction.
+
+Mikhail Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War
+- Gorbachev came to power in 1985. Reintroduced detante to reduce arms
+  and focus on economy. Glasnost, openness, was a better form of
+  "superpower cooperation" that Reagan wanted.
+- Reagan originally acted like the threat of Communism was to blame for
+  every problem of the United States.
+    - Gorbachev was willing to consider mutual reductions in nuclear
+      weaponry.
+- INF Treaty was cuts to nuclear weapons and destruction of various sys.
+    - Did not end the Cold War, but it helped
+- Soviet Union announced it would stop Brezhnev and allow satellite
+  Communist states to self-determine.
+    - Bruce Springstein performed in East Berlin, requested by the East
+      Berlin to boost their image.
+        - "I'm not here for any government. I'm here for you to play
+          rock and roll."
+        - The Wall topples, but this is just the beginning.